REVIEW: Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

Directed by Matt Tyrnauer
2018 Documentary
1 hour 38 minutes
From Greenwich Entertainment

Starring
Scotty Bowers
Stephen Fry
Peter Bart

I've never reviewed a documentary in these pages before because there's been little interest on my part.  Until now.  So what changed?  Let's chalk it up to the subject matter.  Two subjects would always command my immediate attention, Hollywood and gay, and here we get both. 

The Hollywood part would be chiefly biographies on the famous  and the second would be Hollywood history, particularly from the Golden Age and its hanger-on decade, the 1950's.  Six years ago I read, truly, one of the most astonishing, jaw-dropping, eye-popping books that brought both of my favorite subject matters together.  It is called Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars (Grove Press, 2012) by Scotty Bowers (with Lionel Friedberg).  It is a first-hand account of Hollywood in the 1940's and 1950's with the focus on just exactly what the title says... the secret sex lives of the stars.  It's okay if it doesn't particularly interest you... my interest more than compensates.

Well, Bowers has had his page-turner book turned into a documentary called Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood.  Personally, I liked the title of the book better although there's a segment of folks out there who wouldn't get the meaning of full service.  They would probably think it has something to do with a gas station.  Keep reading.

Today Bowers is a 95-year old very spry and active man... probably has a lot to do with all that full service.  He is the onscreen narrator and he would have to be to pull off this intimate documentary.

Born in Illinois he came to Hollywood after serving as a Marine in WWII.  He tells in the book and the film that he got a job at a Richfield gas station in Hollywood and almost immediately actor Walter Pidgeon picked him up and whisked him off for an afternoon three-way.  (I'll tell you I think I know a great deal about closeted gay actors but Pidgeon surprised me.)

Soon that Richfield gas station became more popular than the footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater or the Hollywood Bowl.  Word spread and star after star came by for a fill-up and to have their oil checked.  Scotty had a trailer behind the station where actors and actresses could frolic with fetching youngsters and even the not so young.  That continued for many years although ultimately scores of the famous knew Scotty's phone number and would call him to set up various assignations.  Many called from Europe so that the fun would be waiting.  He also tended bar at popular watering holes and for private parties.

Scotty himself indulged in many trysts with famous men and women but he had also been involved with one particular woman before arriving in Hollywood, had a daughter with her and remained together, though not married, for decades.  He frolicked as well with a number of actresses (including a three-way with pals Ava Gardner and Lana Turner) and he set up a number of heterosexual liaisons for straight actors, such as his good buddy William Holden.

Long after the gas station gigs closed, Scotty still performed his services and in fact it probably would have been difficult to stop since he was so well-known and highly-regarded.  He says in the book and the film that it was not for money... he did it (don't laugh) to make people happy and himself too.  Happiness was very important to Scotty and he confessed to knowing a slew of happy people over his lifetime.  He rejects the use of the term pimp.  Draw your own conclusions.

In the early 80s he was not so happy about the advent of HIV/AIDS and he lost many friends.  His proclivities of the past severely slowed down.  In 1984 he married a singer, Lois Broad, 10 years his junior, and he is still married to her.  She is featured in the film, admitting that when she married him, she had no idea of his past.

There is not a great difference between the book and the film.  He certainly captured the flavor of the times in both.  A chief difference is that the film is a lot less about the stars and a great deal more about Scotty.  That is not to say one wouldn't get one's fill of the spilling of some secrets but there are far more in the book.

Still, he busts some myths about Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  He speaks of director George Cukor's house being the epicenter of gay Hollywood.  Of course there's plenty on Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, Scotty's close friend Charles Laughton, Rock Hudson, songwriter Cole Porter, designer Cecil Beaton and more. 

Just as happened with the book, there will be those who question whether it's all true and carp that isn't it funny how they're all dead.  There are always, always the disbelievers.  Believe me, the closeted stars counted on it.  I have always thought that thinking comes from a basic lack of understanding of Hollywood beyond the klieg lights  and the glamour.  Hollywood is not Springfield, Missouri nor Hot Coffee, Mississippi nor Missoula, Montana.  People in the entertainment field are attracted to Hollywood and one helluva lot of them are gay... always have been and still are today.  Add to that in the good old days they all had to hide.  As for the dead part, c'mon, get real.  You think someone should have outed Cary Grant while he was alive?

While I cannot deny preferring the book, Scotty's film was great fun for me.  I say that mostly because I was pleased to meet Scotty.  It is that flesh-and-blood person on screen that certainly adds more color.  He seems to have a great capacity for happiness and joy.  He speaks of no one condescendingly.  He totally charmed me.

One particularly distressing subject, not in the book to my knowledge, is Scotty's penchant for hoarding.  He owns several homes in the same general Hollywood Hills area and all are, well, crammed with stuff.  I'm amazed that he didn't mind us seeing that.  I can only imagine the treasures that must be hidden in that mess.

The last bit of fun from the documentary was the great 40's music and the wonderful, non-scratchy clips of Hollywood of that time, including the Richfield Station, which you can spot in the above photo.

Finally, with all my trumpeting, it is not a film for everyone via its use of frontal male nudity and brief clips from gay porn.  Of course, some of you perhaps had no intention of seeing the documentary and after reading this paragraph, you now will.


Other gay Hollywood postings:
Sapphic Traffic
The Garden of Allah


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More B Leading Men